After 34 years in the casino business we are off to enjoy our retirement just going from one place to the next in no particular order. Well, while we were traveling we have found a perfect little spot to call home... Colville, Washington. This does not mean we have quit traveling, just taking a year off.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Many people may not think of the beautiful mountainous state of Wyoming as coal country but this state is has a ton of it.
This coal seam is approximately 100 ft thick and adjacent to highway 90 right in the middle of Gillette, WY.

The coal seam is so close that a conveyor belt runs underneath the freeway

directly to this power plant.

This is the huge coal strip mining area of the Powder River Basin,

the largest surface strip mine in the western hemisphere.

While this bad boy is of huge dimensions, you have to understand that the real machine is in the mine, a mile away from my camera. This P&H has a bucket capacity of 140 to 160 yards... the drag line monster in the pit is call "Big Muskie" (28 million pounds and 22 stories tall) and the worlds largest drag line bucket capable of holding two Greyhound buses at a time or 220 cubic yards.

The worlds largest drag line needs a very large coal elevator to feed the trains.

A 90 car train is filled every 58 minutes and the mine runs 24/7....you do the math.

Friday, April 27, 2012

BP's blowout last year was horrible but unless everyone wants to put their "red cups" down and quit driving than America still needs fuel. Renewable energy such as solar, geothermal, hydro and wind still only account for less than 15% total, so that leaves coal, oil and gas.

I have never been close to a drilling rig before but I did drive down a dirt road, right to the fence and from the road I could see tons of support that I did not realize was associated with the rig.

Huge generators, tanks for slurry and at least 8 full size trailers all with GPS and satellite dishes on top... with the added thump, thump,thump of the drilling rig going down foot by foot.

Every hundred or more acres you will see these areas that are retrieving gas from the ground.

You won't see cranes in the middle of the prairie unless it has to do with the oil business.

Near the top of the pass in about 5 feet of snow we noticed some tracks. Earlier we saw some but there were pole marks next to each foot print.

As you can see, there are no pole marks and we believe we see claw marks at the top of each footprint. Now a cougar would not show claw marks because they are retracted...but a bear would show the claws.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Leigh Creek Monument
I find it so incredible, considering the topography and the fact that 120 years ago all you had was horse, rope and pulleys.

This is a look at the hard to reach ledges in the canyon.

This poor guy, William Henry Leigh, was out hunting by himself in 1884 and apparently fell to his death. The heroic part for me was that the men from the local area looked all week for Leigh and finally found him dead....he was then shipped all the way back to Scotland for burial. The locals then made the effort of putting a plaque on the mountain for him...astonishing